Home Ec Classes

[Claire]

How many of you took Home Ec classes in middle and high school? I always took it, from 7th through my senior class for two reasons: It was an easy "A" -- Mom had already taught me to cook and sew, and in my high school years, when they taught pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood classes, I had an infant/toddler sister whose care I was partially responsible, and I'd gone through Mom's pregnancies. I never skipped class (lived too isolated to skip classes, no place else to go). But it was a breeze; like an hour off from school work.

The second reason was that when I was in high school in California, all the shop and home ec classes, along with the FFA and FHA, to to go to Cal Poly for their annual festival. It was great fun.

Ironically, I'll sometimes come up with some obscure fact about health, nutrition, babies (I have no kids, myself), cooking, sewing, etc and my husband and/or a friend will ask me how in the heck do I know that? Hmmm. Now that I think about it, probably in home ec.

 

[Andy M.]

When I was in High School ('59-'62), Home Ec. was considered to be for girls. That and the fact that I had little interest at the time.

 

[bethzaring]

I took one home ec class in both jr. high and high school...loved them both..the Jr. high teacher called my mom and said I had a career in making pie crusts.....too bad I have avoided pie crusts due to their high fat content!

My mom sewed most of us kids' clothes, but she did not teach any of us how to sew. We all learned in home ec classes and still sew today.

I also learned cooking through brownies and girl scouts. I was never involved with 4-H or FFA...I was a city kid..population @ 12,000

skipping class was never an option for me, my mother taught at the high school

 

[babetoo]

when i took it in 1954-55 i learned absolutely nothing. it was not very well taught then. and what we were taught was not usable in the real work. tailor tacks, indeed. lol. have no memory of the cooking part, none at all. and now i don't know if it is still offered. my mother was not a good cook and an even worse seamstress. i am self taught in both areas. not bragging, that is just the truth.

 

[Kayelle]

I went to a small private all girls high school, and there were no classes offered. I enrolled in a city college class that taught a combo of cooking and sewing, and I really enjoyed that. I was only 17 at the time, and I remember being amazed when the instructor taught us to make marshmallows!! I thought they just came from a bag, from some factory somewhere. Gosh I havn't thought of that for years!!
Off to find a recipe for marshmallows.

 

[getoutamykitchen]

Took it in Jr. High & High School. I even hated sharing a kitchen back then too.

 

[Silversage]

I went to a private, all-girl, catholic school. My father didn't allow me to take it. He insisted I take "real subjects"; physics, chemistry, philosophy, history, calculus, english, french, latin, etc. No art, music, home ec was allowed.

 

[jabbur]

I took it in junior high but didn't in high school. By then, I was more interested in getting to nursing school which involved lots of science classes and college prep classes. Left no time for home ec. My mom taught me a lot of cooking and sewing before the classes. It always confused me when the teacher would make us do something different from the way my mom taught me. I remember in 8th grade, we were to make an outfit and then we'd have a fashion show and be graded on the outcome of the garment. The teacher insisted we fit the pattern to our bodies before cutting it out. She made adjustments to my pattern but then when I finished the project, it didn't fit right in the places she adjusted and she marked my grade down because it didn't fit properly. I had already made other outfits at home without altering things. If she had left it alone, I would have had a nice outfit.

 

[Claire]

This has been fun. I always took Home Ec, in 7th and part of 8th in Germany, in 8th, 9th and part of tenth in Utah, and the rest in California. I came from an era ... this is to say the late 60s, early 70s, when girls almost always went to college for a GH degree. That is to say, Get a Husband. Seriously, I swear, you went to nursing school to snag a doctor, to teaching to grab a principal. At some point I said enough is enough and joined the Air Force. Wound up spending my young years living in a man's world. But, you know what? At Finley AFS we had an excellent chow hall sergeant, who would call me and ask me to come by and try to figure out how the egg fu yung that a few GIs had at my house to be translated to dinner for 100 (about the population of our radar site). Een though I never went into anything remotely resembling food service, child care, or sewing, I'm sometimes amazed at the times I've actually used things I learned in home ec classes! And NO, boys did not take home ec, and gals did not take shop. I was enlisted and in the military before I figured out that you screw clockwise and un-screw counter. No dirty implications here. I really didn't know that. I think all boys and girls should take both. Period.

 

[Kayelle]

I went to a private, all-girl, catholic school. My father didn't allow me to take it. He insisted I take "real subjects"; physics, chemistry, philosophy, history, calculus, english, french, latin, etc. No art, music, home ec was allowed.

Did we go to the same school, and have the same father Silver?? "Academy of St. Catherine by the Sea".

 

[MostlyWater]

We only had it in 7th grade; I remember a few boys taking the clas "to meet girls".

 

[buckytom]

even as late as the early 80's, when i was in high school, home ec classes were only for girls. the only boys who took it were close to flunking out and needed an easy grade.

same went for typing class.

i wish now that i had taken both.

 

[Claire]

Bucky, that cracked me up. Typing an easy grade? When I was in high school, a junior I think, my typing teacher took me aside to apologize because the barely passing grade I was going to get would bring down my GPA. The teacher? Apologizing to me? Because I have clumsy fingers? Ironically (I'm 55), computers came into the workplace and most computer weenies didn't know how to type at all. So my barely acceptable typing skills from high school (I don't remember what the minimum the civil service exam required, but I had to test twice to pass it) actually made me a living for 20+ years! In one office we had access to the computer (that is to say four or five of us) one hour in the morning, one in the afternoon. My minimal skills put me ahead of all the men I worked with because I actually used all ten fingers!